Bugs

by Whiti Hereaka

  ‘It’s OK, Mum. Bugs already knows that her uncle is a bell end.’

  ‘And that her mum is a biatch.’

  Nan drops her cutlery and it clunks against her plate.

  ‘I don’t care how old either of you are; I will not have that language at the dinner table.’ Mum and Uncle are naughty kids again, pushing peas around their plate.

  ‘What, English?’ I say, and they all look at me and for a second I don’t which way it will tip: a clip around the ears for being smart, off to your room with no dinner …

  Then they all laugh; Nan too. And I think it’s the first time that it’s with, not at. They’re laughing with me. It’s not because I got some words mixed up or said something dirty that I didn’t understand or had shit on my face or fell down or whatever. I made them laugh properly. And it feels like I’m grown-up.

  ‘She’s quick, eh?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Uncle lifts his eyebrows at me. ‘She gets it from me.’

  ‘Like you’re going anywhere in a hurry with that beer gut, Uncle.’

  He jiggles his belly. ‘This is for endurance. I’m like a camel.’

  ‘Yeah, you smell like one.’

  ‘At least I don’t look like one, Sis.’

  Nan cuts up a potato. ‘Just one nice family dinner; that’s all I wanted.’

  And Pop pats her hand and kisses her cheek, and his eyes are smiling, smiling. He knows that if she looked Nan would see that she’s got what she wanted.

  Because it is nice. And it is family.

  7

  You know how you kind of get a feeling in your bones that something is coming up? Like spring, or the carnival that sets up in the Domain after the Christmas parade … there is a season for it. We’ve been coming to the imaginatively titled ‘Course Information Evening’ since Year 10, so now I get that kind of weird Christmassy feeling at this time of the year. Not that I look forward to it – I’m not that much of a geek. Or maybe I do, because there’s a subtle change in power tonight.

  The teachers set up tables in the school library and it’s kind of like that Christmas carnival in here, the teachers wanting to entice you to their booth. Because their livelihoods depend on us coming along and playing the game. They hope to fill their classrooms and their pockets. We’re supposed to go around and discuss what might be in store for us in the coming year. Roll up! Roll up! We’re like rubes paying our money for a shot at the prize – but the hoops never land, the bottles never topple and the sights are off on the pellet gun.

  I think Mum really enjoys this. She’s gone through the course book and highlighted things. Planning for the future is pretty exciting if you don’t actually have to live it yourself. It’s like she’s picking stuff from an EziBuy catalogue, like she can pick and choose my future as easily as a T-shirt. She’s asking Mr Wilson about calculus and is sounding very enthusiastic about it, nodding like she understands what he means even though she dropped out of maths when she was sixteen. And not just maths maths; cabbage maths.

  ‘I think we should take calculus.’ We?

  ‘I could do driver ed.’ Which would be way more useful in the real world.

  ‘You will not be taking driver ed.’

  ‘But it says here that it would be good on my CV.’

  ‘If you want to deliver pizzas.’ Man, Mum can be harsh. ‘You have to remember what we’re aiming for, Bugs.’

  Step up, step up little lady, and try to hit the rabbit! The butt of the rifle sits in the hollow of my shoulder. I close my right eye and line up the sights with my left. I pump the handle two, three, four times; breathe in, breathe out, hold and pull …

  ‘Bugs.’ Mum is staring at me. ‘Let’s just look at the subjects you need to get into uni, OK?’

  ‘But the lessons are free.’

  ‘And they’ll take up time. You need to prioritise. This is your future.’

  ‘A future walking or taking the bus then?’

  ‘Or me driving you around. Believe me, Bugs, I’m just as anxious to get you driving. Just not during school hours.’

  Anxious? Yeah, she is – not me. She’s the one skittering around like a mosquito – me, I’m just taking it all in. I’m doing a Jez, leaning back on the chair, my arms folded. Not that Jez has ever been to one of these nights. I used to think that he was lucky because it’s boring as fuck, but now I don’t know. At least my mum cares enough to think about my future.

  These are the people who care. Engaged, involved, there. Well, some of the time. These parents are saying that they expect their kids to succeed. These parents are fighting for their kids. And even though she’s a pain in the arse, my mum is in my corner, you know? Jez doesn’t have that. He’s all by himself. That sucks.

  Stone Cold and her mum are over in English; we’re across the room at geography. Shelley is talking to Miss Shaw about – who knows? Probably not something very important, knowing Miss Shaw. I don’t even know why she shows up. Everyone has to take English, so she’s golden. Maybe she does it to piss the other teachers off, which if she does makes her a little bit cooler in my books. Just a little bit.

  I make eye contact with Stone Cold and raise my eyebrows at her, nod my head. She pretends to put a noose around her neck and hang herself – her eyes are crossed and her tongue hangs out to the side. I pretend that my hand is a .44 Magnum, I hold it to my head, and BOOM, my brains are all over the room.

  She slits her throat and bleeds all over the floor.

  I take a bunch of pills and spaz out on the chair, clutching my chest.

  She puts a plastic bag over her head and suffocates.

  I drag a razor up my arms …

  ‘What are doing, Bugs?’ Mum and Mrs Grey are staring at me.

  ‘Nothing.’ I pretend to scratch my arm. ‘Nothing.’

  Mum looks over and sees Stone Cold. ‘Oh, it’s Charmaine.’ She stands up – oh please God no – and waves. ‘Charmaine! Hi!’

  Stone Cold does a little wave back, and I mouth Sorry at her. Just when me and Stone Cold were getting on so well, Mum has to ruin it by making us actually talk. Mum walks across the room, and I trail behind her. My arms are crossed but I no longer feel Jezzed.

  Mum’s jazzed though. I reckon Shelley is the kind of friend-because-our-kids-are that Mum has always been looking for. Jez’s mum is Jez’s mum; not really a coffee group kind of woman. Shelley is flat white and golden friand all over.

  ‘You must be Shelley.’ Mum shakes Shelley’s hand a little too much. Awkward. ‘I’m Nikki. It’s good to meet you.’

  ‘Nikki, yes.’ Shelley always seems to be a little dazed, like she’s just been woken up. ‘It’s good to be able to put a face to the name.’

  And then it goes quiet, as they try to think of something to say.

  ‘Are you looking forward to next year, Charmaine?’

  ‘I’m looking forward to taking drama next year …’

  ‘Now Char, we talked about this …’

  ‘No, Mother, you talked about it. When I had something to say, you were all –’ Stone Cold puts her fingers in her ears – ‘Can’t hear you, la la la …’

  It’s a crack-up, so I crack up. Shelley has gone all red, so Mum nudges me.

  ‘I’m sorry, Nikki.’ Stone Cold is still going la la la – it’s impressive. Even more impressive is that Shelley is totally ignoring her. ‘She had her heart set on drama, but we think she should concentrate on serious subjects.’

  ‘Tell me about it. This one –’ Mum flips her head in my direction – ‘wanted to take driver ed. Driver ed? At school? She doesn’t think it would be a waste of time.’

  ‘Wouldn’t that be nice, having time to waste?’

  ‘I know. She’s sitting around saying “Mum, I’m bored …” when there’s plenty to do, right?’

  And so the ha-ha-ha-our-kids-are-fuck-ups bonding thing happens, and me and Stone Cold have to stand there and listen to them bag us. And some of the stuff just isn’t true, OK? I’ve never said I’m bored to Mum – well, not latel
y, anyway – so that’s really unfair. But you know what really gets me? It’s the same shit we pull. The Oh-my-god-you-won’t-believe-what-my-olds-did shit, and then we try to outdo each other with how shit it actually was. What gets me is that you never grow out of it. This is human bonding behaviour or whatever. Even old grannies are sitting around going you-won’t-believe-what-my-grandkids-did, and everyone will nod and hmm like they haven’t heard this stuff for the past one hundred years.

  ‘If you’re looking for a driving instructor,’ says Shelley, ‘I can give you the name of the one who’s teaching Char. He’s quite expensive, but very good.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ I say before Mum can answer, ‘my uncle is going to teach me. On the farm. On a tractor.’

  Shelley laughs, and it’s Mum’s turn to be embarrassed.

  ‘Oh, you’re serious, Bugs.’ Shelley is apologetic: maybe for laughing; maybe because I have to learn how to drive on a tractor. ‘She’s such a witty girl, Nikki, sometimes I can’t tell if she’s joking or not.’

  ‘I would like the name of the instructor, Shelley.’ Mum gives me a hard stare. ‘My brother is just teaching her the basics, y’know.’

  ‘Of course, of course.’ Shelley says it like it finally makes sense – of course it’s just the basics, who would let their child learn to drive on a tractor? ‘I could give the details to Char …’

  ‘Or we could meet for coffee?’

  ‘Oh, OK …’

  ‘Only if you want to.’ Mum is as pathetic as a year nine boy asking a girl to a school dance.

  ‘Of course. I’ll give you a call?’ Shelley puts her hand on Stone Cold’s arm. ‘We should be heading off.’

  ‘OK then.’ Mum waves. ‘See you later.’ Mum keeps waving and smiling until they’re out of our sight. Then she sets her eyes on me. ‘What did you do that for, Bugs?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Embarrass me?’

  ‘How is it embarrassing?’ I say, like I don’t know. ‘It’s the truth.’

  ‘She must think we’re …’

  ‘Poor?’

  ‘I was going to say crazy.’

  ‘Well, we’re poor, too.’

  Mum looks like I’ve sucker-punched her. All of the fire she had when we arrived has gone, like she doesn’t care about my future any more. ‘Let’s go home.’ ‘But we haven’t looked at history yet.’

  ‘Haven’t we?’ Mum is kind of far away, like Shelley gets. ‘It feels like we already have, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Let’s go home.’ What’s the point in staying if she’s not here any more? ‘I’m hungry.’

  The course booths make a circle, and we walk on the edge, past English, art history, classics, history and drama. Mum keeps walking, but I’ve stopped in front of art.

  ‘I’ll catch up, Mum. I almost forgot something.’

  You know how sometimes someone has the most perfect name? Like the name just captures everything about a person? Well, let me introduce you to Mr Knob. That is his actual name, I kid you not. Mr Knob is one of the art teachers, and he’s everything that it says on the packet. When we had to take art all the boys would pray that it wouldn’t be with Mr Knob. They reckon that Mr Knob would squeeze past them so he could rub himself on their butts, even if there was plenty of room to walk behind them. I never saw him do it, and you can’t just believe everything boys say. Because they say some fucked-up things about their balls going blue and that, which we know is a lie; it totally is. Anyway, so Mr Knob does mince around, and sometimes puts on a stupid French accent, and did make a cock and balls out of clay during pottery class, but that still doesn’t mean anything happened. It’s so up-themselves of those boys, to think that a grown man would have any interest in them. And even if he did, Mr Knob is so small and thin that any of those boys could knock him flat.

  Whatever. He’s still a knob.

  ‘A la la la la la! What brings you to my table, Mademoiselle Bugs?’

  God, if he had a moustache he’d be twirling it right now. ‘What if someone wanted to take art next year?’

  ‘Is this someone you?’

  ‘No, a friend.’

  He presses the tips of his fingers together, making a teepee out of his hands. He rests his thumbs on his chest and touches his forefingers to his lips. ‘I see, and your friend is in year twelve now?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘It is not just “art” in year thirteen, mademoiselle. There’s design, painting, photography …’

  ‘Well, painting then. What if someone wanted to take painting?’

  ‘The thing is, you cannot. You cannot just decide to take painting.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘To take painting in year thirteen, you need to have taken it in year twelve.’

  ‘Can my friend take year twelve painting next year then?’

  ‘Only if your “friend” has taken it in year eleven.’

  He opens the course booklet to the back. ‘See? It’s all on this table, very straightforward.’ He uses his pen to leapfrog from year to year. ‘Year nine, art; year ten, art; year eleven, visual arts; year twelve, painting; year thirteen, painting. You see? You can’t just decide now to take “art”. Each year builds on the last. You needed to have decided here –’ he circles year ten. ‘Surely by then you would’ve known if you were artistic or not.’

  So that’s it – what’s the point in making a five-year plan now, when we made the decisions that matter years ago? Hell, we’re no better off than the poor souls in Brave New World, categorised and determined before our cells had even begun to divide. If you are born an Epsilon you stay an Epsilon, no matter what you ‘choose’.

  The table that Mr Knob points to makes it look like there’s heaps of choice when you get to year thirteen; makes you think that because there are more categories, there’s a wider selection. But it’s a slight of hand, a misdirection – because it’s not wider; it’s narrower. It’s not art, but design, painting or photography. And you can’t take all three, or you can’t take them at all. So what’s the point?

  And suddenly I’m back a few years ago, at that stupid seminar, and Jez is saying What’s the point, eh, Bugs? What’s the point?

  I don’t tell Jez about art – it’s not just ‘art’ – when I see him. The purple around his face is finally fading, and I don’t want to be the one to bruise him again. Although, it feels more like I’ve been hurt. Jez already knew this about the world; this is the real world, isn’t it? I don’t know what to say, so I just say, ‘Hey,’ as I walk up to him and Stone Cold on the field. We stand on the edge looking towards town again. It feels like years since we’ve done this, rather than weeks.

  ‘Hey.’ Jez leans against the tree. I notice that he’s taken the weight off his bung leg, so it must still be bothering him.

  ‘That was weird,’ Stone Cold says. ‘With your mum and my mum.’

  ‘Eh? What happened?’

  Stone Cold has been saving the story up. ‘At the course info thing? Nikki kinda asked my mum out …’

  ‘For coffee.’

  ‘Whatever. It sounded like she was asking Mum out. On a date.’

  ‘That’s shit.’

  ‘Is it?’ Stone Cold is all drama-queened up. ‘Oh Shelley, we should meet up for coffee!’ And then Stone Cold bats her eyelids at me, and I want to bat them too. With my fists. I ball my hand up and give her a dead arm. ‘Ow, fuck Bugs. Jokes.’

  ‘Whatever.’

  Jez goes, ‘Oh, eh, what’s up with you?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Whatever. You’re all jumpy, B.’ He puts his hands on my shoulders but I shrug them off, because his touch makes me nervous lately.

  ‘I’m going to see the dean.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Interviews, Jez,’ Stone Cold says. ‘For next year? I’ve already been. Nailed it.’

  ‘You’ll be sweet, B.’

  I nod. ‘When’s your one?’

  ‘Don’t have one.’

  ‘But you have to,’ Sto
ne Cold says. ‘Everyone that’s coming next year has – oh.’

  ‘Yeah, oh.’ Jez puts weight back on his leg and winces. ‘And before either of you say anything, I’ve made up my mind, OK? There’s no point in coming next year, is there?’ He taps his leg, ‘I can’t even play any more.’ I knew this would happen, and I wanted to give him a reason; I wanted to say Here it is. This is the point. But I can’t say that, can I? Because he’s right.

  ‘Jez …’

  ‘Leave it, eh, B?’ He’s walking back towards the school. ‘Good luck with your interview.’

  ‘He’s brave.’ Stone Cold is picking little fuzzy balls off her jersey and letting them get whisked away by the wind. ‘I’m going to hide out at school and uni for as long as I can.’

  ‘Hide? From what?’

  ‘The real world,’ she says, as she blows another fuzzy ball from her fingertips. ‘Responsibility.’

  Jez is already halfway across the field when the bell rings, and we follow him.

  The dean’s office is tucked next to the senior common room. It’s small, made smaller still by the bookcases that line both walls. At the end is a big window that overlooks the student car park, and under the window is the dean’s desk. So watch out if you’re playing silly buggers in the car park, because she will see you, and you will have detention in the classroom that squeezes the other wall of this office. There’s a big, old armchair in here to fool you into thinking you can just read in here if you want to. It’s like Mrs Lee wants you to think that this is a drop-in, hang-out, my-door-is-always-open kind of a place.

  It’s not.

  ‘Shut the door behind you, please.’ Mrs Lee is a no-funny-business woman. Don’t ask her if she’s related to Bruce, because she will go seriously Enter the Dragon on your shit.

  With the door shut I feel like I’m too big for the space, like I’m going to knock things off the shelves. I pull my shoulder blades tight and kind of hunch down.

  ‘Please take a seat.’

  In the armchair I feel dwarfed – the chair back is tall and the seat is deep, so if I sit right back my feet don’t even touch the ground. It’s like I’ve eaten from both sides of the mushroom in Wonderland – I can totally see Mrs Lee as the Caterpillar, her eyes narrow as she puff, puff, puffs on her hookah and watches me below. I’m hoping that she’ll just tap away on her computer so I won’t have to actually face her, but she takes a file from her desk and swivels around in her chair.